Probably stupid questions

[~David Vesel]

I've got a few question about how things work around here. I hope these aren't taboo subjects. If so, oh well, at least I get my goofups out of the way early.

How do the artist and charted singles charts work, generally speaking? I was rather shocked to find that a song of mine went right to #1 and stuck there for a week.

Is there anywhere that I can view metrics concerning my artist pages, like number of hits or daily traffic? Anywhere I can view the individual ratings on songs?

I was disheartened to see that someone went through the trouble of hunting down all my songs and rating them a '1' without any comments. It's the Internet, I expect these sorts of things, but is this common? Is it likely that they really thought it was that bad or do you think it was an attempt to force me down the charts? How often do you all give '1' ratings? I noticed that some artist, but by no means even a majority, have drawn such low ratings.

Hey, if I suck, that's okay I can handle the news. But I'd at least like to know why....

[~NukleoN]

Oh no, there are definitely stupid questions too. ;)

David..I don't know why you would have gotten any '1' ratings, I thought your stuff was pretty solid. The charts..I imagine it has to do with plays, not so much the ratings...get more plays, your song goes higher on the charts. Everyone (including myself) probably checked out your songs when you posted your announcement, thus driving your chart position up. :)

[~cliffwalk]

When I first posted my stuff on here it shot right up the charts for the first week and then worked its way back down, new artists do get quite a bit of advertising on the site for a while.

As for those 1 ratings. I had that happen as well... Now, I'll admit that the stuff I had on here at the time... umm, was bad. But it wasn't "1" bad. Maybe atleast 2.

They actually have some pretty decent scripting that I guess runs nightly which actually goes through and checks for evidence of the same IP listening to songs repeatedly and cleans it up so the charts are a pretty accurate indication of how much listeing your getting.

I heard some rumblings that the Admins here were tossing around the idea of adding metrics, etc. (as well as "self-service" control over your presence) I'm not sure where that's at.

There are no metrics currently. That is unless something's changed since I pulled my stuff off of here (decided it wasn't ready to be "showcased").

Dave

[~skylla]

i've noticed that pretty much every band here has got a 1-rating - including some bands you shouldn't possibly be able to give a 1, even if you hated the song (i mean... production values and plain songcraft should count for something even if it's not your kind of music). so i wouldn't put too much in those 1-ratings. seems like there's some people out there who pretty much only gives 1's and 10's.

by the way, i've listened to your music and find it pretty good. to me the songs sound very solid. one of these days i'm gonna rate your songs and post comments... just hasn't gotten around to it yet... and you definately will get far above a 1.

[~admin]

The charts work off a very complex algorithm that uses inputs such as plays, frequency of plays, plays trends, and plays momentum. Other inputs include the ratings which definitely impact chart position. There are other factors, but we do not want to give the details away for obvious reasons. The charts on EGN are setup to work with a very large audience base, which is not the case since we do not have that many overall plays daily so the charts may seem a bit uneven at times, but this system will remain as we hope to grow into it someday. Overall, it is very accurate, but like any system people can find ways to exploit it, and they do, and believe me we can see who is doing it. Some songs can hit the top positions from the get go, because these charts are designed to allow everyone to have a chance to get to the top slots and be heard and this is further escalated by the fact that all new artists and tracks are advertised on the home page. Once you are at the top it gets harder and harder to maintain that position as others below harness the same chance. The whole thing sort of flows in a certain way.

The charts show a simple number of plays for each track that depicts the number of "qualified" plays that the track received during the "previous" 24 hour period. That, and the ratings ratios is the only publically viewable information from the charted tracks.

As for people rating tracks, well that is totally in the members control. They can rate and add comment or simply rate without, and what a member types in for their comment is totally up to them, except for profanity and other unwarranted flavors. Ultimately, if a track is "good" then the number of people that rate it proper will average the negative ones that are done "seemingly" in spite or other reason out to the correct values.

[~David Vesel]

Thanks for the feedback on this, and for the words of support for my music. I look forward to receiving some comments attached to the songs, as that is where I get my greatest satisfaction, getting feedback and basically being heard and offering something of value to the synthpop community.

[Avil]

David, I´ve checked out a couple of your songs, I´ve rated them aswell and written a comment. feel free to check them out, but they were only positive.
Love your voice.

Christina

[~cheetah]

Greetings David!!! I just checked out you your music on the charts section. Now, I'm by no means an expert in music, but I thought your work was excellent. Really liked your instrumentation, voice and lyrics. I liked how each one of your songs demonstrated the diversity of your voice. Sounds to me like you have a bright future ahead of you in this industry. Keep it up!!! :nod:

[~platformone]

I'm new to this whole charts bit... and as an artist who will be posting music in the future it seems pretty helpful. There will always be a proponent and an oponent to your music... but before you write for someone else - always write for you.

(hoping some people will dig what I do once I post though...)